


stardust

by lovrenes



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluffy, M/M, a wee bit of angst yIKES, i literally dont know how to tag yikes, i promise its better than the summary, its not done yet tho..., markhyuck cuties, renjun/jeno/jaemin briefly mentioned, when you use a fanfic for a school project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22463770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovrenes/pseuds/lovrenes
Summary: And then middle school hit.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Kudos: 8





	stardust

Have you ever thought about how small you are to the universe? How you are as insignificant to the stars as an atom is to you? How in retrospect you don’t matter as much as you think you do, that nothing really matters at all? The A+ you got in your 6th-grade math test, the one you showed your parents with a grin, never mattered. The butterflies you felt in your stomach during your first kiss didn’t matter either. If you think about it enough, we’re just balls of stardust roaming aimlessly across the surface of the earth.

But after you think of that, have you ever decided that you want to study the stars and memorize their useless meanings. Did you come to the conclusion that whatever happens doesn’t matter so why worry about it anyway? 

Well, Mark Lee has. He also has a little story to tell.

It starts off during a particularly chilly night at the beginning of August, the night he was born into the world. He didn’t remember, possibly because that's how most normal people worked but he liked to think to himself that he slept so much back then to spare daylight for him now. But nothing about that day was in any way special to him, especially compared to the days that followed it. If he were being completely honest, he was never too fond of his birthday.

He wasn’t attracted to the idea of celebrating the fact he came into the world and that he was getting closer to leaving it. It wasn’t death or the idea of him perishing from the earth that scared him, in fact, there was more of a chance that you’d catch him “screaming like a girl” over a spider he found crawling on the bathroom than becoming a corpse. Rather he just didn’t care enough to appreciate the fun of birthday.

and as much as he enjoyed the first four or five years of his life, the years when he was free from everything besides the loving holds and nagging of his parents, preschool through elementary school was much more pleasurable. He may have been shy, but the other kids most definitely were not. In fact, they were the loudest, most annoyingly friendly people he’s ever encountered.

Of course, as they grew older they developed actual personalities that weren’t just variations of “juice box hogger” or “meanie” but by the time that happened, no one even cared who you were.

As far as Mark could tell, girls were too busy gossiping and worrying about their oh-so-precious lipgloss and boys were having fun kicking balls through fields of grass and eat dirt. He personally sees the appeal in any of those things but a person is a person and they could like what they like. Well, just as long Mark wasn’t directly involved.

And then middle school hit. 

Those three years were possibly the worst year of his entire lifetime. Every aspect was looks and popularity driven when people gave up on good friendships to be cool. People went from best friends to strangers within months. As someone who could nothing but watches, he made up his mind to think it was stupid.

6th grade was just fine until the end of November, a bit before the winter break. There were these two girls by the names of Kim Haneul and Cha Eunmi that Mark has known since kindergarten. They were the best of friends, something Haneul excitedly proclaimed during fourth grade, at least until they got into an argument. It started off with something as stupid as a lost tube of lip gloss but eventually led into stealing each other’s boyfriends. Everyone else seemed to take this as a sign that they should start arguments over nothing and turn it into something.

7th grade was just as bad, possibly worse. Not only was he still lonely and everyone was still was unnecessarily problematic, but that was the year his parents split. His father left completely and he felt nothing but hatred for him. He that he left, and the fact that he already had someone else to fall back on. He hated that it left his mother a wreck, sobbing at night and nearly quitting her job. Any sort of reminiscent of him made Mark so angry to he tried to avoid them at all cost.

But that was easier said than done, especially since he spent so much time with his father and could at some point relate anything to that man. Notebooks covered with drawings that his dad helped him with from his childhood, photo albums filled with stilled memories, boxes filled with a letter from his dad’s travels. 

And then there were the small habits he and/or other people shared with his father. He started feeling and unusual rage inside him build when someone would bite their names or stick out their tongue jokingly. He tried to ignore it since there was no use of wasting time with a small pet peeve.

8th grade was when his suffering started to finally die down a bit, starting off with a new friend and new passion. Said friend was an introvert, much like himself, except he was an artist. A very good one.

Lee Jeno was the name and he was months younger than Mark, and a bit taller. He was fairly attractive (well maybe a bit then just “fairly”) and that showed through the number of love letters that was fall to the ground as he opened his locker or the girls who would awkwardly confess during the lunch period. Mark would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least the slightest bit jealous.

But other than the small internal fit of jealously he had every so often, he found himself thinking. It was always something, anything. Then after thinking, his brain liked to overthink. He spent hours trying to explain to himself the reasons as to why an artist placed a stroke of paint where it was or how the shelf in his room is the slightest bit crooked.

If he could think it, he could most definitely overthink it.

And that’s what started up his “stardust theory”, or at least that’s what he liked to call it. It started off as just a small thought he had in midst of his insomnia, yet it blew up into something so much more, months and years of research that fulfilled his “purpose in life”. And for him, it was the universe. The sun, the stars, the moon, asteroids, constellations, you name it.

He found himself often staring outside of his window when the sky started to darken and stars came out in their hiding place beyond the clouds. There was something so alluring about the way they shined yellow in the navy atmosphere, something that made him feel at home, comforted. He loved it.

And oh-so-luckily, high school got better. Year one, as a freshman, aside from Jeno, he made yet another friend. Huang Renjun, a student that moved from China two years prior for the sake of his parents’ jobs. He had similar interests to him and Jeno, things like art and writing, and apparently, he liked to sing and make music as well. 

There was one key difference though.

He was friendly, not in the way where he smiled to people in the halls or held doors for others. Like friendly in the way that he would go up and chat with people while in the hallways, he was approached in lunch, not in the way Jeno was. Renjun was the confident extrovert type and that differed from Jeno and Mark drastically.

So naturally, they met more people then they were accustomed to. Renjun had friends everywhere, everyone seemed to like him -which was understandable considering his charming nature. He knew 98% of the school and even more beyond there. He was friends with kids still in 8th grade -these two kids named Park Jisung and Zhong Chenle. Then there were the popular kids he was friends with. There was one in particular that he considered himself “best friends” with, Na Jaemin. He was the quite literal golden boy of the school. 

And he and Mark had an interesting conversation having to do with what type of melon they would be (Mark chose to be a watermelon, his favorite, and Jaemin a honeydew). As uncomfortable as he felt at first, he later came to appreciate him. This process went on as freshmen through sophomore year.

And then he met Lee Donghyuck. His nickname was full-sun, a fully suitable one since he was the embodiment of sunshine and happiness. They met after they were partnered together for some art project, in which they had to make some sort of portrait of each other. After deciding to talk more about in the library and plan things out, they clicked.

\- at the library where they first met

“Mark!” A shout interrupted his peace and quiet, and the book of poems he was reading closed upon its own accord when he lifted his hands. When he looked up, he saw Donghyuck walking to him with a large smile and a backpack in one hand. In he was carrying a bag of what seemed to be art supplies from the store a couple of blocks away from the school.

“Did you really just get these?” Donghyuck rolled his eyes and nodded his head in response to Mark’s question, putting his stuff down.

“‘Oh! Hello there Donghyuck, how has your day been?’ would have sufficed,” Donghyuck said back. Mark smiled shyly and continued the conversation.

“Whatever, let’s work out the details?”

\- back to the story

Despite their very blatant differences, Mark being a nerdy introvert and Donghyuck having the personality of an excitable and friendly puppy, they became instant friends. Then everyone met, creating a solid friend group of seven teenage boys that had no idea what could come.

And junior year passed like a blur, with the dull exception of the ends in which he realized a thing that changed his life. Feelings sucked, he likes it better off without them, especially since they were the type of feelings that made his heart skip a beat or put butterflies in his stomach. They were the type of feelings that reminded him of how weirdly he was smiling anytime he looked at Donghyuck. 

It was all new to him, and he didn’t like the fact he didn’t understand it. The awkward hand brushes put a blush to his cheeks and made his insides churn with a feeling that felt like a weirdly pleasant stomach ache. It was too much but he craved more. A moment without him was a moment too long. Those were the moments he wanted to be erased from his life.

He loved Donghyuck even when there was no chance he liked him back.

**Author's Note:**

> hi so before you leave, this story isn't finished yet i have another chapter to write idk when I'll upload it but hopefullu soon :)


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